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Published online on November 14, 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0707692104
PNAS | December 4, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 49 | 19625-19630


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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / PLANT BIOLOGY
AUREOCHROME, a photoreceptor required for photomorphogenesis in stramenopiles

Fumio Takahashi*,{dagger},{ddagger}, Daisuke Yamagata{ddagger}, Mié Ishikawa{ddagger}, Yosuke Fukamatsu§, Yasunobu Ogura§, Masahiro Kasahara*,¶, Tomohiro Kiyosue§, Munehiro Kikuyama||, Masamitsu Wada*,{dagger}, and Hironao Kataoka{ddagger},**

*Division of Biological Regulation and Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan; {dagger}Graduate School of Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan; {ddagger}Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan; §Life Science Research Center, Institute of Research Promotion, Kagawa University, Miki-Cho, Kita-Gun, Kagawa 761-0795, Japan; and ||Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181, Japan

Communicated by Winslow R. Briggs, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA, September 25, 2007 (received for review April 16, 2007)

A blue light (BL) receptor was discovered in stramenopile algae Vaucheria frigida (Xanthophyceae) and Fucus distichus (Phaeophyceae). Two homologs were identified in Vaucheria; each has one basic region/leucine zipper (bZIP) domain and one light–oxygen–voltage (LOV)-sensing domain. We named these chromoproteins AUREOCHROMEs (AUREO1 and AUREO2). AUREO1 binds flavin mononucleotide via its LOV domain and forms a 390-nm-absorbing form, indicative of formation of a cysteinyl adduct to the C(4a) carbon of the flavin mononucleotide upon BL irradiation. The adduct decays to the ground state in {approx}5 min. Its bZIP domain binds the target sequence TGACGT. The AUREO1 target binding was strongly enhanced by BL treatment, implying that AUREO1 functions as a BL-regulated transcription factor. The function of AUREO1 as photoreceptor for BL-induced branching is elucidated through RNAi experiments. RNAi of AUREO2 unexpectedly induces sex organ primordia instead of branches, implicating AUREO2 as a subswitch to initiate development of a branch, but not a sex organ. AUREO sequences are also found in the genome of the marine diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana (Bacillariophyceae), but are not present in green plants. AUREOCHROME therefore represents a BL receptor in photosynthetic stramenopiles.

blue light receptor | basic-region/leucine-zipper | Vaucheria | light–oxygen–voltage

Author contributions: F.T. and H.K. designed research; F.T., D.Y., M.I., Y.F., Y.O., M. Kasahara, T.K., M. Kikuyama, and H.K. performed research; F.T., M.W., and H.K. analyzed data; and F.T. and H.K. wrote the paper.

Present address: Department of Bioscience and Technology, Faculty of Sciences and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Nojihigashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data deposition: The sequences reported in this article have been deposited in the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) [accession nos. AB252504 (AUREO1); AB252505 and AB272981 (AUREO2, mRNA and gene); AB272982 (β-tubulin); AB272980 (AUREO-like protein of F. distichus ssp. evanescens); and AB266740 (partial sequence of the rbcL gene of V. frigida, which was used to confirm species identification)].

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0707692104/DC1.

**To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Japan. E-mail: kataoka{at}ige.tohoku.ac.jp

© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA


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Related Commentary in PNAS:

Shedding (blue) light on algal gene expression
Aba Losi and Wolfgang Gärtner
PNAS 2008 105: 7-8. [Extract] [Full Text]  



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A. Losi and W. Gartner
Shedding (blue) light on algal gene expression
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[Full Text] [PDF]